Congressional Democrats claim at every turn they "support the Second Amendment," but the truth came out Thursday when they pulled a coveted District of Columbia voting rights bill because of an amendment that would have ended the long-standing handgun ban.

"This shows the true colors of the Democrat leadership," Alan M. Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms stated. "It should have been easy for the Democrat caucus to agree to the Republican- sponsored amendment, because of the recent federal appeals court ruling that declared the handgun ban unconstitutional under the Second Amendment.

"Instead," Gottlieb said, "Democrats proved once again that all their avowed support for the Second Amendment is nothing but empty rhetoric. House Democrats had a chance to stand up and be counted, but instead they ran for cover, afraid to have a recorded vote prove that, as a party and as individuals, they remain as anti-gun as ever."

Republicans attached an amendment to the District voting rights measure that would have essentially restored the Bill of Rights to Washington, D.C. residents. The bill would give District residents full representation in the House of Representatives. It's a bill Democrats want because the District is heavily Democrat.

"With this delay over the addition of a gun rights amendment," Gottlieb observed, "House Democrats have demonstrated a new low in moral hypocrisy that, frankly, just didn't seem possible. It has taken Democrats only three months to erase the years of promises and pontificating they've done, trying to convince American voters, and particularly the nation's 90 million gun owners, that they are not the party of gun control.

"Yet here they are, sacrificing full House representation for a huge constituency, rather than face a vote on a simple gun rights amendment," he concluded. "Democrats can call this anything they want, they can join the New York Times in blaming Republicans for this debacle, but the truth is simpler and more insidious. If Democrats do not support gun rights for citizens of the District, they don't support gun rights for citizens anywhere else. "

With more than 650,000 members and supporters nationwide, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (http://www.ccrkba.org/) is one of the nation's premier gun rights organizations. As a non-profit organization, the Citizens Committee is dedicated to preserving firearms freedoms through active lobbying of elected officials and facilitating grass- roots organization of gun rights activists in local communities throughout the United States.